What, You Thought I Had Something Interesting To Say?

Butterflies and a Lunar Eclipse

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:32:56 GMT

So tonight was a night of butterflies and a lunar eclipse. My aunt is a Contributing Member to the Smithsonian, so she got an invite to the Natural History Museum's preview of its new exhibit on butterflies tonight, so you guys get a few butterfly pics. Just don't ask me what type of butterflies they are, I wasn't taking notes. Then, of course, there was the lunar eclipse and I got a couple of OK shots of it. Just so you know, the moon is really hard to photograph since it's so much brighter than everything else around it. Very difficult light settings. Anyway, here you go!

OK, this one is really cool, it's a millions-of-years-old butterfly fossilized in amber.

The Cutest Thing I Saw This Weekend

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:10:05 GMT

So this is really cute, but unfortunately, because I'm a moron, it's sideways. If anyone knows how to rotate a video clip 90 degrees, please clue me in. Anyway, this is the other man in my life, who was supposed to have been in bed but managed to convince his dad (my boyfriend) that he was hungry and needed a bedtime snack, and so was allowed to come back downstairs. Doesn't he look sleepy?

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:30:38 GMT

Hey everyone,

I haven't posted much lately because work has been keeping me really busy. It's not likely to lighten up anytime soon, but I hopefully I'll get back in here and post pictures a little more often. This one is from a walk through the woods in Ireland, though I don't remember exactly where. Most likely it was on the grounds of the Ashford Castle in Cong.

The Jared Padalecki Picspam

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:41:58 GMT

So I know I haven't responded to the comments on the Jensen picspam yet, I'll get to it soon, I just figured you guys probably wanted this first. :) So here's the Jared picspam, as promised. Again I prefer that folks link back here rather than cutting and pasting, and if you'd like to use one of my pics for something, please ask first. Thanks! Here we go, a couple of Jared's were hilarious:

The Jensen Ackles Picspam

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:47:34 GMT

OK, I know certain people have been waiting for a picspam of Jensen from the Creation Convention last weekend. So here are some of the better shots I got. I'm currently planning to follow this with a picspam of Jared, a picspam of the two of them together and a picspam of Samantha Ferris and Fred Lehne. If I'm not exhausted by them I may do a final one of the non-Supernatural related guests, Nicholas Brendan and Mark Lutz. So here's Jensen, I only had one from the breakfast that was only him, the rest are from his panel. As usual, I'd prefer that you link back here rather than cutting and pasting my pics elsewhere and if you'd like to use for an icon or something, please ask first. Thanks!

Just a Little Nightcap

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:41:15 GMT

I've been fiddling around with the watermarking technology, and I think I've got it now. Wanna see a couple of samples? Well then, here are two more of my pics from the convention, one for the Jensen girls and one for the Jared girls (and again, I'd prefer if you link back here rather than copying and posting these elsewhere, thanks):

See, I was nice enough not to watermark right over their faces!

Chicago Supernatural Convention Pics

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:44:33 GMT

OK, so since I've already posted these over in TWoP, I suppose I ought to go ahead and post them here too. Hopefully I'll get some new ones up for you guys in a couple more days. Please link back to this post rather than copying these and pasting them all over the internets, 'K? If you want to use them for a specific purpose, ask me first please.

Probably one of the cutest J2 moments I've seen:

A couple more of them together, with Jensen sporting his Jared T-shirt. I loved the way he threatened to wear it on the plane all the way back to Vancouver.

A couple of just Jensen:

A couple of just Jared:

Samantha Ferris:

Frederic Lehne singing to the audience:

Fred dipping Samantha at the Saturday night dessert party:

That's all I've managed to get uploaded into Photobucket thus far. Stay tuned!

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:33:32 GMT

So, it finally looks like I'm getting around to posting in my journal again. *g* Anyway, as some of you know, I've recently been to London. The weather was pretty drizzly the first couple of days, which isn't ideal for photography, and I've been a couple of times before, so I didn't take very many pictures, but here are a few.

The Tower of London:

A detail of the White Tower inside the Tower of London:

Tower Bridge:

Big Ben:

One of the only night shots to actually turn out (it was very windy and rainy that night, so it was an uphill battle):

The George Inn, one of the few Historic Trust pubs and coaching inns. It's so old that Shakespeare and Dickens are both said to have frequented it, and it is mentioned in one of Dickens' novels. We stopped and had a pint and some fish and chips. Very cool.

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:04:07 GMT

So, since I suspect the soap picture below doesn't count as a real picture, I figure I'm overdue, so today I give you two pictures -- contrasting scenes from my life if you will. Last week, as I was walking from work to the metro, I noticed that we had a fantastic sunset going on, so the first shot is a sunset over K Street in downtown DC. The second shot I took this weekend while we were out at the Virginia Scottish Games which were held at Sky Meadows National Park in Delaplane, Virginia which is just under an hour west of DC. You can see why they call the Appalachians the Blue Ridge. The countryside out there is absolutely gorgeous (as you can see) and the weather was phenomenal -- low 70s, and sunny with a breeze -- so we had a great day at the festival and it really felt like we had shed the city for the day. Also, it was one of those days where I walked around all day thinking, "Aww, my state is so pretty." I do love Virginia. Hee.

The Things People Save. . .

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 04:36:26 GMT

Sorta crafty (as close as I get, anyway). . .

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:08:38 GMT

So my latest little project is helping my boyfriend get his three-year old moved out of the crib and nursery and into a "big boy" bed and room. Coincidentally, one of his neighbors who was cleaning out his house brought over an adorable little child's rolltop desk for the little guy. It was badly in need of refinishing, though,and somehow that whole project got blown up into us going to the unfinished furniture store to get some other pieces to stain to match the little desk when we refinished it. So in the end, I ended up refinishing the desk and finishing a pair of matching kiddie chairs, a little bookcase and a little dresser and bedside table. I think they came out pretty cute:

The desk closed and open with one of the little chairs.

The bookcase:

The dresser and bedside table:

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:38:55 GMT

Hmm, it's been a while since I posted anything, so how's about another picture? This one is the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy all lit up at night. Some interesting tidbits about the Pnote Vecchio, it was built around 1345 and there are little shops built right on the bridge, which you can see the backs of in my picture. The shops were originally butchers, but in 1593, the ruler of the town decided to ban the butchers in order to increase the prestige of the bridge (and to cut down on the smell of entrails being tossed ou the windows into the river, ew), and since then the shops on the bridge have been occupied primarily by gold merchants. So when you walk across it, there is quite a display of shiny, pretty things to see. The brightly lit part across the back and top is the Vasari Corridor, which connects the Palazzo Vecchio (Florence's town hall) to the Palazzo Pitti (the palace that was home to the Medicis) so that the Medici rulers could walk (or flee, as necessary) from the Palazzo Vecchio to the safety of the Palazzo Pitti without having to go into the (potentially hostile) streets.

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:12:09 GMT

Eh, I'm a bit bored at the moment, so I thought I'd pop in and post a random pic.

This is also from the ruins of the abbey at Cong, Ireland.

Finally. . .

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 01:50:28 GMT

So I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from my trip to San Antonio last month. As you can see, I'm partial to the old Spanish missions.

Here are a few from the Alamo:

And a few from the Mission San Jose:

A few from the Mission Concepcion:

And this one just amused me:

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:31:55 GMT

I figure faninohio is due to start pestering me soon, I probably ought to go ahead and post another picture while I'm in here. This one is a detail of the cupola on the top of the Duomo in Florence, Italy. Yep, we climbed all the way up. In fact, since I was touring Italy with a bunch of guys, we pretty much climbed up to the top of every monument, tower, etc. that was open to the public. I've really got to dig out my negatives from the Italy trip and start scanning them in now that I have my spiffy new scanner up and running. Maybe when I finally get a couple of days of vacation. I haven't taken any time off since the beginning of the year, and I'm starting to get a bit desperate.

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:45:44 GMT

So I thought I'd give this a shot since all the cool kids are doing it and the results were . . . unexpected.

What color is your soul painted?

Pink

Your soul is painted the color pink, which embodies the characteristics of love, friendship, compassion, femininity, relaxation, ability to overcome evil, honor, morality, general success, gratitude, appreciation, admiration, sympathy, health, and marriage. Pink falls under the element of Air, and is symbolic of gentle emotions and of emotional unions.

Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

I'm a hard-nosed lawyer, I tell you!! For reals!!

Thu, 10 May 2007 15:01:52 GMT

Sorry I haven't posted in a while folks, real life has been ridiculously busy lately. But since faninohio wants more travel photos, here's a nice shot of the University of Glasgow where I spent a fantastic semester as an undergrad. Glasgow rocks y'all.

Daffodil Parade

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:06:42 GMT

Since the weather here has gotten a bit grim again (raining all day yesterday, high winds today), I thought I'd try to cheer things back up with some nice, sunny daffodil pictures. I get the full array of daffodil types on my walk to and from the metro station (you know, when it's WARM enough to walk). Here's a teaser:

We'll start out with the usual yellow-on-yellow variety, which remains my favorite:

There are miniature yellow-on-yellow ones too, but in pictures they look just like the regular sized-ones, it's hard to find them situated somewhere where you can actually get a proper perspective on their size.

Then we have the yellow-on-white:

Here we have them side-by-side:

Then we have orange-on-white:

And finally white-on-white:

Friday Morning Fun

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:24:15 GMT

It's been a little while since I've had time to fool around with my pictures, but since lexibaby pointed out this fun internet map thingy to me, I thought I'd put it up.

Here's where I've been:

In the US:

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

In the world:

create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Just another pretty YAY SPRING YAY picture.

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 00:07:18 GMT

This is a tulip magnolia blossom from a tree across the street from my house that I took a picture of on my way to work yesterday. I couldn't resist making an icon of it.

A rant and a picture

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:26:18 GMT

So here's one of my pet peeves. I hate it when someone takes two or more state names and smooshes them into one word -- it's just so wrong. Examples of offenders: Texarkana, Delmarva, Minnkota and the one that spawned tonight's rant, the newly discovered "Arklahoma." Why do people do this? It really never turns out well. Those are not pretty words. *shudder*

And here's a picture to make up for my rant:

It's of the Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Signs of Spring!

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:56:14 GMT

So I took a few pictures of what's currently blooming in my yard today, and it's warm and sunny and lovely and it all makes me very happy. Yay!

So here's a little group of crocuses. I love crocuses because they are the very first little bulbs to poke their heads up out of the earth and bloom every year, so when they appear, I know spring is really here and winter is on the way out for sure.

Then on the bushes out front (I don't know what they are but they smell divine when in bloom) I saw this big, fat bumblebee doing his big, fat bumblebee business.

Hee, checkout his little bumblebee butt! He was a very busy fellow.

Yay Spring!

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:30:10 GMT

I'm so happy it's finally spring! I walked to/from the metro last night and this morning and didn't even need a jacket! Eeeee! Flowers are coming up, the trees are starting to bloom and I'm a happy woman. I broke out the sandals this morning and painted my toenails bright red in celebration. Wheeee! Only another week or two until the cherry blossoms bloom and all the festivities get under way, yay!

It seems I don't have that many spring pictures in my photobucket at the moment, I'll have to remedy that, but here's an old one of the Jefferson Memorial with some cherry blossoms in the foreground to tide you over until I get some more up.

Fan made me do it!

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:44:57 GMT

Teaser:

So faninohio put in a request for pictures from Kiefer Sutherland's appearance at the DC Independent Film Festival this weekend. Since it sounded like an interesting event (they were showing a documentary of the band that Kiefer managed as they toured through Europe, with an appearance by Kiefer and performance by the band), the boyfriend and I headed up there to check it out. Here's my report:

I hate to start out complaining, but I really have to say that this was the single most poorly managed event I have ever attended. The advertised schedule was that the appearance by Kiefer and the director and producer would be at 7pm, the movie at 7:30 and the band playing at 9. Well it was 7:45 before they even opened the doors to the theater, and then they only let people in 20 at a time, so it took FOREVER to get everyone in and seated. The event started over an hour late and then instead of starting with Kiefer, as advertised, they started off with the closing and awards ceremony of the film festival, which they drug out for 45 minutes because they kept doing things like losing the names of the people who were getting the awards and whatnot. No sense of rush at all, despite the fact they had kept people waiting standing in the hallway for over an hour before getting started. AND throughout the whole thing there was a great deal of back-patting about how wonderful the festival was and how well they had run it. And they were not very good public speakers, either. If we'd had popcorn, we'd have been throwing it. So then they went straight to the movie and made us wait until after the movie for Kiefer and the band. So rather than Kiefer being on at 7 or shortly thereafter, he didn't appear until at least 10:15. Then, because the event started so far behind schedule, we had to leave partway through the panel discussion with Kiefer and missed the band entirely! Grrr. We were rather bitter as we left because we'd had to miss part of what we really wanted to see but had to sit through 45 minutes of an extremely painful award ceremony. It was painful to see such a cool event spoiled through mismanagement.

So, anyway, now that's off my chest, I can say that Kiefer came across very well -- kind, funny and self-depreciating. It was a question and answer session and he interacted very well with the fans, seemed genuinely interested in what people had to say and clearly cared a great deal about this project. And now here are the pictures! I was using my stalkerazzi zoom lens which is much more senstive to motion than a regular lens, so combined with the low lighting (and a venue not conducive to the use of a tripod) most of the pics turned out unfortunately blurry like this:

But I did get a couple of good ones:

And then I got several that are a little blurry but still kind of cute:

And finally, a little bonus: I briefly switched over to my little camera, which doesn't have nearly the zoom capacity, but does have some video capacity, so I got a little clip of Kiefer answering a question about where the man dressed in the giant bunny suit in the film came from.

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 15:43:25 GMT

Happy Saturday everyone! Here's a new pic, it's the standing stones at Callanish, the second largest site in Great Britain (after Stonehenge). It's on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides Islands of Scotland. 'Twas very cool. Also, I've posted the answer to the light switch mystery as a comment in my previous post.